Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (1877–1934)

Georgia and State Rights was originally published in 1902 as Ulrich Phillips' doctoral thesis at Columbia University. Ulrich, according to New Georgia Encyclopedia, went on to become "the first major historian of the South and of southern slavery." Writing from 50 to around 80 years after the Civil War, Ulrich during his career never moved off his view of slavery as "a relation characterized by 'propriety, proportion, and cooperation.' Through years of living together, Phillips maintained, blacks and whites developed a rapport not of equals but of dependent unequals. Though masters controlled the privileges that the slaves enjoyed, Phillips considered blacks 'by no means devoid of influence.' Phillips considered slavery to be a labor system 'shaped by mutual requirements, concessions, and understandings, producing reciprocal codes of conventional morality' and responsibility."*

Ulrich was credited with being one of the first historians to make deep dives into published sources contemporary with the period he was writing about. Georgia and State Rights is filled with footnotes referring to newspapers, journals and biographies from the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. As such it is very instructive, once (or if, I guess) you can get around Ulrich's personal perspectives about the history. So, for example, Ulrich considers it perfectly reasonable that "there was apparently a steady advance of sentiment in Georgia against the justice of slavery from the time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution until {William Lloyd} Garrison began his raging." (emphasis mine).

At any rate, the history is an interesting tour through the attitudes about Southern history from the perspective of the South circa 1900. Subjects like the "removal" of the Creeks and Cherokees from Georgia territories, the internal party politics of the state are provided through the lens of the debate between states rights proponents and those hoping to maintain a stronger Federal U.S. government. For example, Georgia states rights advocates were bitterly opposed to the Federal contention that the central government had the right to make states abide by the treaties that Washington had signed with Indian tribes. Luckily for these Georgians (and, of course, to the woe of the tribes), Andrew Jackson became president. That was that for Indian treaties.

Ulrich also makes it clear that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery. He says that even the non-slaveholding, poorer Whites became convinced that the economic prosperity of the state, and so their own prosperity, depended on the continuation of slavery. While many/most of Ulrich's attitudes on these issues are unpalatable, the history provided here is interesting.

* https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ulrich-bonnell-...… (más)